Ep #25: The Power of Pre-Deciding Money Boundaries In Your Coaching Business

Hey coach, can we talk about money and boundaries here for a moment? Because if you want your coaching business to run smoothly with little to no money drama, then it's critical for you to make clear, easy decisions ahead of a money situation cropping up. I'm Kendall. Tune in this week as I share with you a super helpful checklist of seven key areas in your coaching business where you definitely want to proactively make a great decision, know your boundaries, and also pre-decide when or if you want to be flexible.

Because being prepared ahead of time, it makes your life easy. Making a thoughtful decision about these seven money situations, when you're not in the heat of the moment, when you're not triggered, when you're not being asked for anything, you're not in the middle of a situation. It means you're going to make a clear decision that honors you, honors the values you hold for your business, and ultimately honors your clients. It's all here for you in this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. Let's dive in.

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hello, beautiful coaches. I am going to just dive right in here today. In a previous episode, I talked about how to start mastering money conversations. That was episode number 20, which I'll link to here in the show notes. In that episode, I covered the five critical elements required for successful money conversation. Anything from clients wanting discounts, a client may be is late on their monthly coaching payment, you know you're overdue for raising your fees, or a vendor or contractor is underperforming. Or your partner wants to know why you're investing in more training.

I highly recommend popping over and listening to that episode because the process that I outlined there for you is so, so good, and you definitely want to get your hands on it. Remember, a money conversation is simply anytime money is involved in a conversation, or a conversation about money needs to happen.

So today I want to talk about many conversations from a different perspective. I think of this episode as mastering many conversations the prequel. Because while there are always going to be situations that come up in your coaching business where you're going to need to have that money conversation, there's actually a key mindset to minimizing how often needing to hold on money conversation actually will come up.

Now I am a super proactive person. I love, love, love to set things up in my business to keep problems or to keep issues from happening. Not because I don't know how to handle them. I'm actually absolutely masterful at handling anything that comes up in my coaching business. No, the reason I like to be proactive is because I really do not like drama in my business. I love simplicity.

I love calm. I have this beautiful carved stone on my desk that says peace, and that's what I crave. Because simplicity and calm and peace, they keep my nervous system from over firing at the least little thing. If my nervous system is calm, then my creativity gets to really switch on. It's like I can expend energy on creating new coach trainings and content, like this podcast episode here, or I can spend energy on handling issues that often don't need to or they didn't need to happen in the first place.

I think that if you're a highly empathetic person, like I am, creating the energy and the vibe that we want in our environment is such a high priority. Or at least it needs to be a high priority. Because otherwise for us highly empathetic, highly sensitive types, like I am, and probably you as well, it can get really overwhelming with feeling all of the emotions so deeply and for too, too long.

Anyway, back to mastering money conversations, the prequel. The key mindset that you want in order to minimize fuss and drama around money conversations in your business is this. I proactively take care of money situations in my business. That's it. Now I realize it's not the sexiest sounding mindset, but it's so right on, right. I proactively take care of money situations in my business.

So what does that mean? It means that in seven key money areas of your coaching business you proactively have already decided two simple things. Number one, you've decided what your boundary is. Number two, you've decided how much or when you may or may not be willing to be flexible. That's it. The key here is you decide ahead of time.

Why this matters is because when you make a thoughtful decision, when you're not in the heat of the moment, when you're not triggered, you're not being asked for anything, you're not in the middle of a situation, you're going to make a clear decision that honors you, that honors the values you hold for your business, and ultimately, honors your clients.

When you decide ahead of time what your boundaries are, and how much or when you may or may not be willing to be flexible, you are so much less likely to slip into avoidance when a money situation does come up. Because while yes, of course you can avoid a money situation, but let's be honest, avoidance is not a strategy. If we're especially being honest, the situation is not like wine. It doesn't get better with age.

Okay, so you know you're going to decide ahead of time what your boundaries are. You know you're going to get clear on how much or when you may or may not be willing to be flexible. So here are the seven key money areas where you're going to apply this.

Number one, refunds. Now in my business, there are very, very few places where we offer refunds. When we do offer them, therefore a very short timeframe, typically just for a few days. In other words, a client has just a few days in order to request a refund. Otherwise, after that there are no refunds. There's only one situation a client may find themselves in where I'm willing to give a refund. So that I've defined ahead of time where I am willing to be flexible.

I did that because that situation only happens about gosh, every two years. So all of the other times we stick to our refund policy. No guilt on our end. No blame or shame projected from us. It’s just super clear, easy and done. I think I'll go ahead and do a future episode about refunds where I can go into a lot more detail about this because I think it's an area that is so easy to handle.

Yet too many coaches get caught up and guilt and get triggered by how to handle refunds. So for you, today, all you need to do is decide what your refund policy is, write it down so that you're clear and that you feel complete that you have this handle.

Number two payment dates. Meaning if a client chooses a payment plan option, and then their payment date comes and goes with no payment made. How do you want to handle that? In my coaching business, we have a simple communication policy that starts just a few days after a payment is due. So, again, write it down so that you're clear ahead of time. Remember being proactive, it's your superpower here.

Number three payment plans, meaning what is your decision about clients asking for a special payment plan? So I'm not talking about payment plan that you offer to everybody. I'm talking about a prospective client who wants to custom design their own payment plan. Now we get this request quite frequently actually with potential clients asking for, for example, they may ask for a 12 month payment plan instead of a five month or whatever it is that we offer on that particular coach training.

So I'm clear the answer is no. Because it would not be fair to all my other clients who figured out how to make the payment structure work. It's not fair to my business. It can feel like, to me, that I'm not valuing my courses and coach trainings by negotiating on the payment plan schedule.

Number four, missed coaching sessions. What is your policy if a client does a no show, or if they cancel the same day as their session? Decide this ahead of time so that you can handle it with grace and ease when it happens.

Number five, discounting. Now let me be really clear here for you. I'm going to give you your policy, don't discount. Period. Just don't do it. What we do is, for existing clients, we may offer a special savings for a course or a coach training for a very limited time as a thank you of appreciation. But discounting nope, it's just not a thing.

Number six, raising fees for past clients. It's likely you're going to be raising fees for new clients frequently. But when you choose to raise them for current clients, it can be a very different decision. So whenever I'm coaching clients in our certification programs on raising their fees, I always clearly demarcate for new clients versus for existing clients because they're two very different decisions, or they can be at least.

So for me in my own business historically, I did not immediately raise fees for current clients. However, I have a strategy around this so that my current clients always knew that the fees had gone up, but they also knew that I was holding their fee as is. If a client stopped coaching, and then later came back, it was always at the current fee, like today's fee, which was usually higher than what they had been paying previously.

All right, number seven, going over on coaching sessions. If going over on coaching sessions happens for you say more than once with a client, this is something you need to take a look at. This situation always springs from you feeling in some way either guilty or feeling less than or feeling unconvinced in some way that your coaching is valuable.

Again, another topic for a different episode, but I wanted to include it here in this checklist because it happens so often. It can become a habit either throughout your business or just with certain type of clients, and you definitely want to take a look at that.

So there you have it, I encourage you to make your decision about each of these seven areas, to type it up in a document for yourself, or put it in the notes area of your phone. Then breathe easy because you have this handled. The next time, or the first time, a client makes a request in any of these areas, you don't have to rethink it. You look at that decision that you made proactively when you weren't emotional, when you were feeling calm and clear, and you use that decision now in the situation that has now come up. You keep it simple.

You handle the client or prospective client with respect and dignity. You honor your decision because it was a good one. Because you made it for reasons that are meaningful and important to you.

Now I've said it before, and I will remind you of it here again today. You are not a bad person because you have money boundaries. You are not greedy or selfish because you're not willing to be taken advantage of. You are a leader. You're a coach who empowers others, and that includes empowering yourself. Remember too that money decisions and money conversations are never about money. They're always about self-respect, boundaries, and values.

Now if you're wanting my in depth coach training on mastering money conversations, be sure to check out my course Mastering Money Conversations. This course is just a few short hours. So you can grab a cup of whatever you love to drink, relax in your favorite chair, press play, and in a short time, be ready to take care of your next minute conversation like the total coach boss that I know you are.

Plus, inside the training, I include 15 scripts showing you word for word how to handle the most common money situations that you're going to encounter in your business. I'm also demonstrating for you each script. So you get to hear me speak it and so you can catch each of the subtle, yet all important ways to say what needs to be said.

Here's a hint, tone makes all of the difference. You are going to love hearing me model this for you. So Mastering Money Conversations will absolutely make the difference for you between avoiding those important money conversations and giving away your power versus completing the conversation with a result that you're happy with and feeling good about your new found skill.

So I'll link to that training in the show notes. You can check it out. It's one of those trainings that you'll consider a vital part of your resource library now and for the life of your business because you'll keep going back to it again and again. All right, my beautiful soul. Thank you so much for spending time with me here. I'm excited for us to share space again next week in our next episode.

Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you follow so you never miss an episode. Also, I would so love and appreciate if you would leave a 5-star review. Your review supports women just like you in discovering all of the juicy tips and insights I’m sharing here on how to coach women on money.

And if you want to learn how to excel at coaching women on money, definitely go to KendallSummerHawk.com and check out the wealth of money coach trainings that we have for you. Thanks so much for being part of this money coaching movement and for tuning into the show every week.